NOV 9th 2015-Current Affairs

>>A highly encrypted cloud system of the Indian Army that will store personnel as well operational data, was inaugurated by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in line with the force's plan to be a "digital army".

The 'Army Cloud' includes a central date centre, a near line data centre, both in Delhi and a disaster recovery site for a replication of its critical data along with virtualised servers and storage in an environmentally controlled complex.

This is similar to 'Meghraj', the cloud system of National Informatics Centre, and will provide all information technology infrastructure, including servers for computing, storage, network security equipment centrally for automation of Indian Army.

Another 'Digital Army Initiative' which was also inaugurated was 'Digi-Locker', provides a secure and exclusive data storage space to all the units and formation headquarters of the army over its dedicated data network.

The digi-locker of the army is similar to e-Locker of Digital India programme and has all the features like digital signatures and watermarking. This is an important step towards implementation of cyber-security as it prelude to carrying of soft copies of data on CDs/DVDs and removable media.

>>The Indian Railways issued the letter of award (LOA) for setting up a diesel locomotive factory (DLF) at Marhowra in Saran district of Bihar and procurement and maintenance of mainline diesel electronic locomotives to GE Global Sourcing India Pvt Ltd. 

The project was announced in 2006-07 to select a joint venture partner through international competitive bidding for manufacture and supply of modern diesel electric locomotives of 4500 HP and 6000 HP to Indian Railways. 

The company would work on an assured off-take model of 100 locomotives per annum for 10 years. The basic cost of 1000 freight locomotives will be about Rs.14,656 crores. The company will also maintain these locomotives upto the 13th year. Thereafter, Indian Railways will take over the maintenance of these locomotives. 

The 4500 HP and 6000 HP locomotives will also operate as 9000 HP and 12000 HP multiple units to provide the necessary economical and environmentally friendly motive power to growing heavy haul freight business of Indian Railways.